Business Fit Magazine November 2019 Issue 3 | Page 26

Business
Entrepreneurship:
How to Spot Amazing Business
Opportunities – A Case Study
Regular contributors to Business Fit Magazine
Maike Benner and Lilli Rohde founders of
MaLish consulting, share with our readers a
case study of how their initial business idea
changed direction and the entrepreneurial
journey it took them on.
Life is a journey and so is business. Especially
when setting up a business, change is the only
constant. Often, we as entrepreneurs start out
at one point and then the business evolves
along the way. Just think of Nokia which was
into rubber in the 19th century, became
the market leader for mobile phones at the
turn of the millennium and is now a network
equipment company.
One of the most important traits as an
entrepreneur is to be flexible and grab
chances when they present themselves. That
is especially true when setting up a business.
There is no right or wrong, no blueprint, no
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universal formula and most notably: usually
you need to figure out for yourself which road
to take.
Today we want to share with you one
entrepreneurial journey which is very close
to our hearts and where hopefully inspiring
conclusions can be drawn. It’s the story of our
own business Malish
The Start
Our business journey started internationally.
We had decided to make it abroad first, before
starting to approach the local German market.
Maybe we were very naïve but when we
started to speak to people in the Netherlands,
Canada and UK they were all very open to
talking to us and giving us a chance. Everyone
was very positive towards our decision to leave
our corporate jobs and start something on
our own. We were given the time to develop
our consulting idea into a ready-to-sell and
implementable product.
The Local Market
After one year on the international stage - we
had during this journey spoken on different
stages in New York, London, Paris, Tirana,
and had acquired substantial branding -
we decided to conquer the local market.
Being totally excited and pampered by our
international customer base we thought it
would be easy. Our plan was to approach the
German companies with the same strategy -
but all of them wanted to see certificates, for
example from agile coaching institutes and
no one could understand our holistic team
approach. For the first time in our relatively
short entrepreneurial journey we faced
rejection and financial challenges. We started
questioning ourselves and thought about
going back into the corporate world.
However, what we realised was that we
attracted a lot of individuals during networking
events, when we spoke on stage or lead
female business networks. After being asked
over and over again for business advice (from
start-ups) or career tips (from employees and
former colleagues), we realised that we should
add coaching to our portfolio. In our case this
meant reviewing our business model and
adding personal coaching.
This was the logical step – even though we had
said at the beginning of our entrepreneurship
that we would not go into individual coaching.
We now – on top of company consulting –
coach individuals in their career development
or their business challenges or in transition
from one “world” to the other. This is a natural
extension to our business, as we love working
with people and can apply our knowledge
from past functions and industries which we
had acquired in the corporate world.
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